Glastonbury Board Starts School Consolidation Process Tonight

School Officials To Present Options At May 12 Meeting

GLASTONBURY — School officials will present the board of education with four options tonight to deal with declining enrollments — and each involves closing a school building.

Superintendent Alan B. Bookman said the question isn't whether to close a school, but which one and when. With declining birth rates, a slowly rebounding housing market and falling elementary school enrollments, keeping all the buildings open doesn't make sense, he said.

"We have an awful lot of data we have collected and that will be part of the presentation," Bookman said. "The real meat is in the details. We will describe the four options and what the effects of each will be."

Bookman isn't revealing any details tonight at 7:30 p.m. in town council chambers of town hall.

Assistant Superintendent Matthew Dunbar has been working on the plan and will make the presentation, and Bookman said that after each option is presented, he will make a recommendation to the board. After that, the public will have an opportunity to speak.

Depending on time, the board may choose to discuss the recommendation or wait until its June 9 meeting.

"We aren't in any particular hurry," Bookman said. "We want to get as much data out there as we can and feedback back to us."

The last time a building closed was 2001, when Academy School, which served as the town's sixth-grade school for years, shut down and students were moved to Gideon Welles School. The town last went through redistricting in 2006 when Nayaug Elementary School opened in South Glastonbury.

For now the board is dealing with the declining enrollment by reducing its teaching staff. Over the past few years, staffing has been reduced at the elementary school to keep pace with the declining enrollment. Bookman said added a redistricting plan would begin next winter.

"When you close a school, there will be savings. We are determining just how much savings there would be," he said.

School board Chairwoman Susan Karp said Monday will serve as the "beginning of the comprehensive review" and noted it will be done in a way that provides good information and is inclusive.

"Any time you talk about change, there is concern in the community," she said. "It's an issue we've been dealing with and we need to be sensitive to the student needs and concerns of parents and staff. We are talking about if we have to close a school, it wouldn't be until 2016-17, so this gives us plenty of time to discuss everything."